


Reflections on God

by DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered



Category: Warrior Nun (TV)
Genre: F/F, Mirror Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:34:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28725180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered/pseuds/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered
Summary: Set in a post S1 vaguely canon compliant setting, Ava takes a novel approach to get Beatrice to start to forgive herself for their love.
Relationships: Sister Beatrice/Ava Silva
Comments: 30
Kudos: 191





	Reflections on God

Beatrice wakes up in the night, sobbing silently, shaking. This is fairly normal. 

Their lives are in a state of flux: no Church to guide them, no routine to cling to. And Beatrice? Beatrice doesn’t know who she is anymore. 

It’s been a month since they ended the war, a month since everything fell apart. The wounds are still raw. It’s also been about that long since she and Ava began sleeping together, curled up, Beatrice’s head resting on her chest and listening to the heartbeat that seemed to sustain them both. 

No more halo, no more super powers. Just a beautiful, normal, fragile girl who loves Beatrice far more than Beatrice can fathom loving herself. A girl who holds Beatrice when she wakes in the night, shaking with sobs that she stubbornly refuses to let out, even as hot tears leak onto Ava’s chest. 

Ava’s arms tighten around her. “It’s okay,” she whispers, “I’m here.” As if she alone could protect Beatrice from any monsters that might invade this single room flat on the edge of a small town in Spain. 

The only monsters here are in Beatrice’s head, though. 

“I love you,” Ava whispers. 

Beatrice cries harder, her throat tight and refusing to let a sound out. In her calmer moments, she can talk to Ava about what wakes her at night. She can explain that her self-hatred will take a long time to work through and that no matter how deeply she loves Ava –and she does– sometimes the reflex will overtake her that she needs to be punished for being so selfish. 

“You know,” Ava says gently, “you’re not just taking when we make love, you’re giving, too. You’re giving me joy and intimacy and everything I never thought I would have. It’s not selfish for us to be lovers. It’s not selfish for you to want love.” 

“What is it then?” Beatrice demands, feeling badly at how snappish she sounds. 

But Ava isn’t fazed by her tone. “It’s beautiful,” she answers earnestly. 

Beatrice doesn’t say anything. She sniffles a little. 

“And so are you.” 

“Stop.” 

Ava pats her shoulder gently. “You really don’t believe that, do you.” 

Beatrice shakes her head. 

Ava sits up and flicks on the small bedside lamp. “C’mere,” she says sleepily. She swings her legs out of the bed and stands up, then pulls Beatrice along with her, her face still streaked with tears. They shuffle to the small bathroom. Ava pulls the chain to turn on the ceiling lamp. She takes a washcloth and dabs the tears off of Beatrice’s face. And then gently, she takes Beatrice’s shoulders and turns her toward the mirror. 

“That’s you,” she says softly. “You. You’re beautiful.” 

Beatrice’s chin trembles. “I don’t believe–”

“Sh. Look at you.” She stands behind Beatrice, locks eyes with her in the mirror. She traces her fingers down Beatrice’s jaw. “Look at this delicate jawline, this perfect chin.” She traces her fingertips lightly across Beatrice’s lips. “These lips, God, you don’t even understand the way I used to stare at them before it was okay for me to kiss them.” 

Beatrice surrenders to a little smile at this. 

“And your eyes,” Ava murmurs in her ear. “I could die in them and be happy. Everything you feel for me, I see in them, and I love them. There’s nobody on this earth that’s more beautiful to me than you are.” 

Beatrice doesn’t want to look at herself, so she looks at Ava. Stares at her in the mirror. She’s beautiful. Every slope and angle of her face, her skin, her dark eyes with their curly golden lashes. She’s beautiful. _Not me,_ Beatrice thinks.

“Hey,” Ava scolds gently. “You’re cheating.” 

“I’m what?” Beatrice has finally stopped sobbing but the muscles around her ribcage will be sore for a bit. 

“You’re cheating,” Ava repeats firmly. “You’re not looking at you. You’re looking at me.” She places a finger on Beatrice’s chin and turns her face so that she’s looking at herself dead on. 

Beatrice sees herself. She doesn’t see what Ava sees. She doubts she ever will. But she does see one thing; the way all her raw feelings are writ large in her wide, dark eyes. Right now, they’re still red from crying. 

“If you’re not able to see how beautiful you are,” Ava goes on, stroking her arm, “then look how beautiful we are together.” Ava slides her arms around Beatrice’s waist and presses her warm body against Beatrice’s back. Ava is softness and comfort and warmth and love. She looks in the mirror and sees the way she relaxes against Ava, melts back into her arms. She sees the adoration in Ava’s look, her approval at the sight of them together in the mirror. 

When Ava tilts her head forward, closes her eyes, and softly kisses the side of Beatrice’s neck, Beatrice feels a little rush at both feeling her warm lips, and seeing Ava’s face as she does it, so loving and reverent. The gentle sucking as she works her way from jaw to shoulder, accompanied by the sight of her, lost in the pleasure of it. It feels so good, Beatrice wants to close her eyes, but she can’t bear to look away. Ava is right. Their love is beautiful. 

“See?” Ava murmurs against the tender skin of her neck. She catches an earlobe between her teeth and flicks her tongue over it. “Beautiful. We wouldn’t be this beautiful together if it was wrong.” 

Beatrice feels a billion arguments rise in her head, but she beats them back. She stares into the mirror, at Ava’s pretty lips dropping delicate love marks over her earlobe, her neck. She sees her own eyes, drowsy and overcome with feeling, with the love that drove her into Ava’s arms in the first place. She couldn’t look away from it if she wanted to. 

Ava’s hands settle on either side of Beatrice’s ribcage, resting just beneath the underside of her breasts. Beatrice sighs Ava’s name, drops her head forward, inviting Ava to kiss the back of her neck. Ava indulges her, her mouth working slowly down from her hairline to the place where her neck disappears into her threadbare tee shirt. 

“I love you,” Beatrice says weakly. Ava has gotten to know that she likes attention on the back of her neck. 

“I know,” Ava mumbles in between kisses. “But I want you to love _you_ even half as much as I do.” 

Beatrice draws a shuddering breath. She’s going to cry again if she’s not careful. 

“Uh-uh,” Ava says, gentle but firm. She stops kissing, and her hand comes up to tilt Beatrice’s face toward the mirror. “Look.” 

Her hands slide up, and with such a soft, light touch, curve themselves around Beatrice’s breasts as if protecting them. Beatrice stiffens, resists arching into the touch, tries to have some shame about the way that Ava makes her feel. “I love them,” Ava whispers into her ear. “They’re yours, but they’re mine, too, and I love them.” 

Ava has a way of saying things so simply, but making Beatrice feel so much. “Yes,” she sighs. 

“Yes?” Ava prods gently. “Are they mine too?” 

“Yes.” 

“We’re sharing. That’s love, that’s good.” Ava brushes her fingers over Beatrice’s hard nipples that poke through her sleeper shirt. The touch makes her moan. Her mind tries to reproach her for it but Ava is there. “You love being loved,” she whispers, continuing to touch her. “That’s good too. You should love it. It’s beautiful. Look.” 

She sees herself, and yes, she’s flushed with desire, and the sight of Ava’s hands on her, fingers stroking and teasing her nipples, is more than she can stand. 

“I want you to see,” Ava goes on. “I want you to see what I see when I make love to you. I want you to understand.” 

Beatrice thinks this is an exercise in futility but still. Ava’s hands, her touch, so gentle and knowing, wakes tingling aches in her body. And her eyes, every time they lock gazes in the mirror, ache with love. And Beatrice? She hardly recognizes herself in the mirror, her dark eyes shining, her pupils dilated, her lower lip caught between her teeth in an effort to restrain the sounds that wait curled behind them, wanting to escape. 

“Want more?” Ava asks. Her voice is soft, full of love, but is there a teasing note as well? 

Beatrice doesn’t know what to say. She does, but how can she say that yes, she wants more, she wants Ava’s hands everywhere? Their lovemaking has involved little in the way of words, at least on her own part. She’s afraid to say out loud what she wants. As if lightning will strike her for wanting.

Ava’s hands drift down to the hem of Beatrice’s tee shirt, fingers catching hold of it, and then begin to slowly lift it, watching in the mirror, looking at Beatrice’s face, making sure she’s all right. After a moment of being caught in their shared gaze, she stops Ava’s hands for a moment. 

“What’s wrong?” Ava asks. 

“My scars.” 

It’s been in near-total darkness every time they’ve made love, and Beatrice knows that surely Ava is aware of the scars, has run her fingers over them, but to see them raw in the light? 

“I love them,” Ava says with such utter conviction it startles Beatrice. “You think they’re ugly, but they’re evidence of your courage. Your brave heart. You think I don’t love that?” 

Beatrice tries to look away from the mirror again, but Ava gently tilts her chin back. 

“Come on. Chicks dig scars,” she teases, but there’s a pleading in her look, and Beatrice can’t say no to it. She lifts her arms, and allows Ava to slide the shirt off of her. 

She finds the sight of herself shirtless… arresting. Instinctively, her shoulders pull inwards, her arms start to fold across her chest, to protect the white, shiny slash marks on her ribcage. She finds in her own face surprise, vulnerability, anticipation. Ava gently takes her hands and brings them down to her sides. Then she traces each scar, her eyes watching herself in the mirror, watching Beatrice’s tremors as she touches them. 

“You. Are. Everything,” Ava says, gripping Beatrice’s hips and pressing herself against her back. “And us together? We’re gorgeous.” She squeezes, and then moves her hands up to Beatrice’s waist, and then slides arms around her again. 

Beatrice has stared at her naked self only critically, never even trying to see beauty because she didn’t believe there was any. She looks now at herself; slim hips, flat stomach marked with little scars, small breasts tipped with dark nipples standing stiff. And a face that holds all the mystery of an open wound. Ava is laying her bare, asking her to see something different. 

When Ava’s hands glide up to take her breasts in hand again, she looks away. But there again is the gentle touch on her chin to tilt her face back to the mirror. “Nope.” 

Beatrice notices now that she’s been holding her breath. Nighttime birds chitter out in the darkness of spring. The world has been holding its breath, the stars, even, waiting for Beatrice to let go of her familiar pain. Ava holds her tightly, her body a soft reassurance, but deceptive in its softness. The strength of her love is like divinium. Beatrice watches her, radiant, flushed with passion, caressing and stroking, tugging at her nipples, kissing her bare shoulders, until she has to breathe, she has to let go. Her body aches, her sex aches, and her mind can barely process that she’s seeing something amazing, something sensual, and that it involves herself. 

She releases a breath, that becomes a sigh, that becomes a moan. 

“That’s my girl,” Ava says encouragingly. She’s like an ember; her heat, her glow, it throbs against Beatrice’s whole self. Ava’s breath is thick and hot, and she pants, “Will you let me make you come? Please? I want you to see it.” 

Beatrice hesitates. She’s almost afraid to see it. 

“If you can’t say the words, just nod,” Ava prompts. 

Beatrice hesitates for just a moment, then nods. 

Ava smiles that honest smile, the one that comes from her deepest place of bliss. Leaving one hand where it is, she slides the other down, easily slips past the waistband of her pajama pants, and down between her thighs, where she’s fully aware that she’s slick and wet with her… her lust. And she can’t help it, Beatrice is helpless; she lets out another quiet moan, and sees her own lips curl in a softly ecstatic smile, the tension in her form draining away and letting her melt into Ava’s arms. 

She’s right. Ava is right. The happiness that fills her, that bubbles up from Ava’s touch and fills her from her belly to her crown to her toes, is beautiful. 

Ava’s touch is slow, deliberate. If Beatrice tries to look away, or gets too lost in being stroked, Ava gently brings her back to the mirror, to remind her of where she is, who she’s with, what they’re doing and that damn it, it’s not a sin. 

She’s seen Ava’s face when they made love plenty of times now, but never has she seen her own; the adoration with which she looks back at Ava during these moments of intense intimacy. The look of being overcome with pure, powerful, righteous love. Ava’s fingers circle her tender nerves, and the pleasure of her touch is electric as it sizzles across synapses. She twists into it, into Ava, into her touch, and the rhythm their bodies find with each other is sweet and sacred. “You’re my angel,” Ava whispers, stroking her carefully, but with knowledge of how her nerves respond. 

It has always struck her funny that the Bible chose “knowing” someone as its euphemism of choice when discussing sex, but now it makes sense. Ava knows her, the most intimate and hidden parts of her. And Beatrice is coming to know herself. 

“You’re beautiful,” she whispers again. 

Beatrice sighs, transfixed by the two lovers in the mirror and their passionate embrace. 

“Come for me,” Ava whispers. But it’s not a command, it’s a plea. “You need to see how beautiful it is. Forget that’s you and me in that mirror and just look at it. You’ll see.” 

But Beatrice is already ahead of her. These lovers in the mirror, they’re so tender, they’re so open to each other, so giving. Their love is… her thoughts disintegrate. She’s tipping over into a bright, blossoming orgasm and Ava is so beautiful as she brings her there, softly moaning encouragement. And then the bloom bursts open, and Beatrice can only say one word, ragged and holy in her mouth: “Beautiful.” 

“Yes, yes,” Ava is murmuring, delighted, thrilled beyond measure that Beatrice is finally able to see it. Her fingers slow, moving more softly to carry Beatrice through the sweet, sweet moment that tears the thoughts out of her head. 

She reaches down, clasps her hands over Ava’s, and holds them there. She regards them, Ava wrapped around her in the mirror, the delicate blend of their skin tones, the matching flushed cheeks, the smiles of post orgasmic bliss. “See?” Ava whispers. 

“Yes, I do.” 

A tear slips out as she looks at them there. Not a tear of shame or grief or fear of condemnation. Just a tear that comes because her heart is overfull. Ava strokes her cheek. “Was that okay?” 

Beatrice nods. “I have so much work to do,” she sighs, and she’s happy, but wearied from her crying and then her coming. 

“We have work,” Ava corrects. “We have to help you unlearn the things that make you cry sad tears after sex.” 

“These aren’t sad tears.” 

“I know. I can tell the difference.” 

“This helped, I think,” Beatrice says after a moment. 

Ava holds her tightly and rests her chin on Beatrice’s shoulder. “I love you.” 

Beatrice doesn’t know whether she will flagellate herself over this later, but for now, she’s tired and wants to go make soft, sleepy love to Ava before they fall asleep in each other’s arms. “Let’s go back to bed.” 

She yawns. 

She takes one last look at her half naked self in the mirror before turning off the light to leave. She can’t say she’s beautiful, not out loud, but she doesn’t entirely hate what she sees. It’s a start.


End file.
